VoI (John Rawls)

Is a society more “just” when it’s more free, or more equal? Imagine you were about to be born, but didn’t know as whom: male or female, rich or poor, urban or rural, sick or healthy. And before learning your status you had to choose what kind of society you’d live in. What would you want?

At first glance, this simple thought experiment seems like it could be the approach creating legislation and organizing the long sought-after utopian society. But if high school literature classes taught us anything, it’s that utopias are just dystopias. So what went wrong? The problem arises from behind the veil itself; there is an endless amount of “yous” that you can be, so how do you ensure that this society’s legislation will fit your needs once the veil is removed? Even if you had the statistics of the average person AND were given all the laws that would be most beneficial to that kind of person, you still have to wonder about the people outside of that scope. Will you think about the potential misery this might bring to them or does your definiton of the ideal society only have to pertain to most people, not all?

Computation is Key

There isn’t a correct answer to that question where it ought to be, only an answer that you think is right–that goes for basically every philisophical question as well. The real problem then is that of computation. Regardless of what you believe, the only way to know what kind of society you want is by being able to compute the possibilities behind the veil. Whether your guiding principle is of utilitarianism or hedonism, knowing your odds will be your only way of being able to write the rules that you want.

Philosophy As A Tool

This leads me back to the ought-is issue. If you want to increase your chances of creating the best society for yourself and/or for the most people, you are probably going to think of making the biggest buckets to fit the most people, even if it might mean hell for others. Utilitarianism seems like it ought to be the true principle, but even the hedonistic person behind the veil is doing the same process as the utilitarian one. So, it ought not…but it also ought to be.

Once again, philosophy may be a futile means of approaching this problem, but computation gives me hope.

This does not even take into account all the other contradictory things the universe throws at us like climate change and entropy…but that’s for another time